UC-NRLF 


B    3    37M    S5D 


GIFT   OF 
'.    :  .   L.   Leebrick 


LIBERALITY-ITS    LIMIT 


PRES.  HOPKINS'S 


BAGCAiAUftEATE  SeHMOK 


jtott  m»  i  s  (»■?:■, 


LIBERALITY-ITS  LIMITS. 


BACCALAUREATE  SERMON, 


DELIVERED   AT 


WILLIAMSTOWK,  MASS. 


JTJr,Y    38,    1867. 


BY  MARK  HOPKINS,  D.  D. 

President  of  Williams  College. 


PUBLISHED  BY  REQDEST  OP  THE  CLASS. 


BOSTON: 

PRESS  OF  T.  R.  MARVIN  &  SON,  42  CONGRESS    STREET. 
1867. 


Ehtefed  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  £eaf  1867,  by 

T.  R.  Marvin  &  Son, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


SERMON 


II  JOHN,    10,  11. 

IF  THERE  COME  ANY  UNTO  YOU  AND  BRING  NOT  THIS  DOCTRINE,  RECEIVE 
HIM  NOT  INTO  YOUR  HOUSE,  NEITHER  BID  HIM  GOD  SPEED;  FOR  HE 
THAT    BIDDETH    HIM    GOD    SPEED    IS    PARTAKER    OF    HIS    EVIL    DEEDS. 

Is  it  possible  that  this  passage  was  written  by 
the  beloved,  and  the  loving  Apostle  John?  Is 
it  he  whose  Epistles  so  commend  and  command 
love,  who  exhorts  a  kind-hearted  woman  disposed 
to  hospitality,  to  close  her  doors  against  men  sim- 
ply on  account  of  the  doctrine  they  bring?  Xot 
on  account  of  their  character,  or  their  life,  but  on 
account  of  their  doctrine !  Yes,  their  doctrine ! ! 
How  strange !  Was  it  that  he  was  a  Jew,  and 
had  but  recently  emerged  from  a  system  avow- 
edly narrow  and  exclusive,  and  did  not  as  yet 
comprehend  the  breadth  and  freedom  into  which 
Christianity  was  ultimately  to  expand?  Did  the 
new  wine  of  that  freeer  and  more  liberal  system 
which  Christ  brought,  find  in  him  an  old  bottle? 
True,  the  doctrine  to  which  he  refers  rwas  the 
doctrine  of  Christ.'  It  involved  the  validity  of  His 
claims,  and  seemed  to  be  in  peril.  "For,"  says 
he,  "  many  deceivers  are  entered  into  the  world 
who  confess  not  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the 


5S3134 


flesh.  This  is  a  deceiver  and  an  anti-Christ.  .  . 
Whosoever  transgresseth,  and  abideth  not  in 
the  doctrine  of  Christ,  hath  not  God.  He  that 
abideth  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  he  hath  both 
the  Father  and  the  Son."  It  is  true,  too,  that  the 
customs  of  society,  the  relations  of  parties,  and 
the  import  of  such  acts  were  different  then.  Still, 
making  every  allowance,  if  we  judge  from  this 
passage  and  its  connections,  the  Apostle  John 
did  not  belong  to  Uhe  broad  church.' 

Freedom,  liberality,  breadth,  liberal  Christianity, 
broad  church;  narrowness,  illiberality,  bigotry, 
superstition,  or,  to  concentrate  all  in  one  word, 
orthodoxy,  —  these  are  the  terms  that  we  hear 
bandied  on  every  side,  and  we  would  gladly  know 
their  import. 

These  terms  are  applied  to  men  on  the  ground 
of  their  belief — not  their  belief  on  all  subjects, 
but 

First,  As  they  believe  less  or  more  in  the  exist- 
ence and  agency  of  invisible  personal  beings,  in- 
cluding God. 

Secondly,  As  they  believe  less  or  more  in  the 
importance  of  religious  truth. 

And  thirdly,  As  they  believe  in  conditions  of 
salvation  that  require  a  life  of  less  or  greater 
strictness,  and  that  thus  include  a  smaller  or 
larger  number. 

First,  then,  men  are  said  to  be  liberal  and  broad 
as  the}  believe  little  in  invisible  personal  agency; 
and  to  be  narrow  and  superstitious  as  they  believe 
more  in  such  agency. 

Of  belief  in  such  agency  Ave  have  had,  and  still 


have,  every  shade  from  the  drivelling  superstition 
of  African  Fetishism  to  a  blank  atheism.  In  a 
state  of  ignorance  and  barbarism,  men  attribute  to 
personal  agency  many  of  those  movements  and 
changes  in  nature  which,  as  society  advances,  are 
resolved  into  the  operation  of  general  laws,  im- 
plying but  a  single  agent.  The  supernatural 
agency  thus  believed  in  is  multifarious,  capricious, 
with  more  of  malignity  than  of  good-will,  often 
wholly  malignant,  and  is  made  by  artful  men  a 
means  of  terror,  of  subjection,  and  of  degradation 
to  the  people.  There  have  been  no  despotisms 
like  those  based  on  superstition,  and  no  lower 
deep  of  degradation  than  that  caused  bj  it,  unless 
it  be  the  degradation  of  a  sensual  and  bloody 
infidelity  caused  by  its  rebound. 

It  is  in  this  belief  in  the  supernatural  connected 
with  fear  and  with  irrational  and  debasing  prac- 
tices from  that,  that  we  find  the  essence  of  super- 
stition. Superstition  is  not,  as  is  said  by  Charles 
Ivingsley  in  a  recent  lecture  on  that  subject,  "  the 
fear  of  the  unknown."  It  is  the  fear  of  the  super- 
natural in  the  unknown.  Take  away  from  super- 
stition the  element  of  the  supernatural,  and  the 
residuum  is  simply  error.  To  dislodge  this  fear 
as  a  cause  of  degradation  to  the  masses,  it  does 
not  appear  that  anything  but  Christianity  can 
avail,  and  even  that  has  not  been  able  to  do  it 
fully  as  yet  in  any  country-  It  is  surprising  how 
many  superstitions  still  linger  even  in  the  most 
enlightened  parts  of  Christendom,  showing  the 
natural  and  ineradicable  affinity  of  man  for  the 
supernatural,  and  the  certainty  of  a  region,  some- 


0 

where,  and   in  some  form,  corresponding-  to  that 
affinity. 

But  relatively,  since  the  coming  of  Christ, — 

"  The  Oracles  are  dumb  ; 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 
Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving." 
"  Peor  and  Baalim 

Forsake  their  temples  dim." 
"  Nor  is  Osiris  seen 

In  Memphian  grove  or  green." 

Wherever  the  Bible  is  fully  received,  the  brood 
of  superstition  is  dispersed. 

•*  The  flocking  shadows  pale 
Troop  to  the  infernal  jail." 

Through  the  light  and  impulse  given  by  Chris- 
tianity, science  has  taken  the  place  of  superstition, 
and  men  have  thus  reached  a  position  that  has 
enabled  them  to  go  beyond  the  limits  allowed  by 
Christianity,  and  to  repudiate  that  without  which 
no  such  science  had  been  possible. 

In  this  whole  movement  there  have  been 
marked  points  of  transition.  There  has  been 
the  transition  from  heathenism  to  Christianity. 
This  involved  no  denial  of  supernatural  personal 
agency,  but  a  change  from  a  belief  in  the  "gods 
many  and  the  lords  many  "  of  that  system,  to  a 
belief  in  the  one  living  and  true  God,  and  in  the 
system  of  revelation  and  redemption  made  known 
in  the  Bible. 

Then  there  is  the  transition  from  a  belief  in 
God  as  revealed  in  the  Bible  to  deism.  Deism 
acknowledges  God.     It  may,  or  may  not,  believe 


in  providence  ;  but  it  knows  of  no  revelation 
except  through  nature,  and  denies  that  personal 
interposition  ever  comes  in  to  change  her  uni- 
formities. 

From  deism  there  is  a  transition  to  pantheism, 
and  from  pantheism  —  though  it  may  not  be 
easy  to  see  the  difference  —  to  absolute  atheism. 
According  to  either  of  these  systems  both  reve- 
lation and  miracles  are  impossible  and  absurd. 

According  to  Comte,  the  apostle  of  positivism, 
these  transitions,  and  the  necessary  steps  of  the 
human  mind  towards  its  enlargement,  are  from 
supernatural  agency  to  metaphysical  causation, 
and  from  that  to  positivism.  Positivism  knows 
nothing  of  God.  It  regards  as  illegitimate  all 
investigations  concerning  causes,  efficient  or  final ; 
and  would  confine  philosophy  to  a  knowledge  of 
facts  and  their  order. 

Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that  at  each  of 
these  steps  those  who  make  them,  or  approxi- 
mate towards  them,  claim  that  they  become  more 
liberal  and  broad,  and  look  upon  those  they  leave 
behind  as  narrow  and  superstitious.  If  those 
thus  left  hold  to  their  views  strongly,  they  call 
them  bigoted.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
retain  their  position,  call  the  party  of  movement 
latitudinarians,  infidels,  heretics.  These  terms, 
whether  used  for  commendation  or  reproach,  thus 
become  wholly  relative.  To  a  believer  in  reve- 
lation, a  deist  is  an  infidel;  to  the  atheist,  or 
pantheist,  he  is  still  in  trammels,  limited,  narrow; 
and  it  is  the  atheist  alone  who  has  come  out  into 
perfect  freedom  and  enlargement. 


I  have  said  thai  these  terms  are  applied  on  the 
ground  of  a  belief  or  disbelief  in  supernatural 
agency.     This  is  true  ;  but  it  is  to  be  observed 

thai  when  this  belief  is  so  held  as  to  lose  its 
hold  upon  the  conscience  and  its  control  of  con- 
duct, the  intense  meaning  that  belonged,  to  the 
terms  originally,  especially  those  o'f  reproach,  is 
discharged.  They  so  fade  out  as  to  be  used 
with  indifference,  or  in  jest,  and  it  is  practically 
regarded,  as  it  really  is,  of  little  consequence 
what  a  man  believes. 

And  this  leads  me  to  observe,  in  the  second 
place,  that  the  terms  mentioned  are  applied  to 
men  as  they  believe  less  or  more  in  the  impor- 
tance of  religious  truth,  and  so  are  less  or  more 
strenuous  respecting  it. 

We  here  find  an  anomaly.  On  other  practical 
subjects  men  regard  truth  as  vital.  Truth  is  but 
an  expression  of  the  actual  state  of  things,  and 
if  men  do  not  act  in  accordance  with  that  they 
fail.  Who  goes  to  California  for  gold  except  as 
he  is  assured  of  the  truth  that  gold  is  there  ? 
The  Bible,  too,  attaches  great  importance  to 
truth.  It  says  :  "  Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it 
not."  "Contend  earnestly  for  the  faith  once 
delivered  to  the  saints."  It  makes  truth  the 
means  of  sanctification:  "Sanctify  them  through 
thy  truth."  It  makes  salvation  depend  on  belief : 
"He  that  believeth  shall  be  saved."  "He  that 
bclieveth  not  shall  be  damned."  And  yet  it  is 
not,  perhaps,  strange  that  the  idea  of  liberality 
should  attach  itself  to  a  light  estimate  of  religious 
truth. 


For  what  do  we  see  ?  "We  see  a  belief  in 
dogmas  made  a  substitute  for  a  Christian  life,  — 
loud  profession  and  high  orthodoxy  in  connec- 
tion with  lax  and  questionable  morality.  We 
see  dogmas  maintained  with  bitterness,  and  by 
means  subversive  of  all  the  principles  of  the 
Gospel.  We  see  in  most  countries  a  belief  in 
them  connected  with  a  settled  order  of  things, 
and  so  with  power  and  place.  We  see  how 
numerous  and  slight  the  points  are  —  some  of 
doctrine,  some  of  discipline,  extending  even  to 
ecclesiastical  millinery — on  the  ground  of  which 
men  divide  and  become  hostile  sects.  We  see 
points  of  difference  magnified,  and  feeling  con- 
cerning them  intense,  as  they  are  of  less  impor- 
tance. We  become,  perhaps,  confused  by  the 
diversity  and  clamor  ;  and  it  cannot  be  thought 
strange  if  these  exhibitions  of  weakness  and  of 
wickedness  should  cause  a  rebound  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.  They  have  caused  this ;  and  here, 
as  before,  the  utmost  extreme  claims  for  itself  the 
greatest  liberality.  One  cardinal  proposition,  and 
but  one,  those  who  make  this  claim  do  hold  to. 
It  is  that  religious  belief,  articles  of  faith,  creeds, 
are  of  no  consequence  provided  the  life  be  right. 

"  For  forms  and  creeds  let  graceless  bigots  fight, 
He  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right." 

This  they  hold  ;  and  as  a  corollary  they  hold 
that  those  who  do  not  believe  it  are  narrow 
and  bigoted,  and  not  fit  to  belong  to  the  broad 
church.  It  is,  indeed,  questionable  whether  they 
are  fit  to  belong  to  this  nineteenth  century. 


10 

But  in  the  third  place,  the  terms  in  question 
are  applied  to  men  as  they  believe  in  conditions 
of  salvation  that  require  a  life  of  less  or  greater 
strictmss',  and  that  will  thus  include  a  smaller  or 
larger  number.  It  is  as  thus  applied  that  these 
terms  excite  the  most  intense  feeling. 

Some  believe  that  all  men  will  be  saved  do 
what  they  may.  They  believe  in  self-indulgence 
till  the  world  is  exhausted,  and  in  suicide  then  as 
the  shortest  road  to  heaven.  These  are  as  liberal 
and  broad  in  their  sphere  as  the  atheist  is  in  his. 
B et ween  this  point  and  the  fastings,  the  flagel- 
lations, the  hair  shirts  of  monasticism,  or  the 
precise  bead-telling  and  genuflexions  of  lighter 
forms  of  superstition,  there  is  every  variety  both 
of  view  and  of  practice. 

In  the  early  stages  of  all  religious  movements, 
whether  dispensations,  reformations,  or  the  origin 
of  sects,  the  tendency  is  to  a  definite  belief  and 
strict  practice.  But  in  time  the  force  of  the 
original  movement  dies  out.  "The  letter  that 
killeth"  displaces  "the  spirit  that  giveth  life." 
Forms  stiffen  into  formalism,  and  under  this 
there  will  lurk,  first  indifference,  then  infidelity, 
and  then  contempt.  After  this  no  human  power 
can  renew  the  movement.  For  human  systems, 
decay  is  death ;  while  in  God's  system,  apparent 
decay  is  simply  winter.  But  during  such  a  pro- 
cess of  relaxation,  men  who  had  seemed  molten 
together,  separate,  and  re-combine  as  by  elective 
affinity.  As  some  become  rich  and  self-indulgent, 
and  more  desirous  of  the  fashions  and  gaieties  of 
the  world,  they  gravitate  towards  certain  denom- 


11 

mations  ;  and  denominations  themselves,  as  the 
Quakers  and  Methodists  within  the  last  two 
generations,  become  greatly  modified.  As  such 
changes  go  on,  the  more  strict  lament  the  degen- 
eracy of  the  times,  while  those  thought  to  be 
degenerate  regard  themselves  as  coming  into 
greater  freedom  and  enlargement.  They  have 
become  more  liberal,  and  look  back  upon  their 
former  state  as  one  of  narrowness,  or  supersti- 
tion, or  bigotry.  Perhaps  they  remain  Avith  the 
denomination  in  which  they  were  born,  but  they 
will  more  likely  take  or  make  an  occasion  to 
pass  into  one  where  the  general  standard  is 
more  lax. 

In  this  state  of  things,  with  lines  not  sharply 
drawn,  with  indefinite  standards,  with  customs 
objected  to  and  denounced,  not  as  sinful  in  them- 
selves, but  on  account  of  their  associations  and 
liabilities  to  abuse,  we  hear  the  terms  in  ques- 
tion applied  quite  jiromiscuously,  and  often  with 
intense  feeling.  One  man  regards  his  own 
standard  as  scriptural  and  rational;  that  of  his 
neighbor  as  lax  and  worldly.  His  neighbor  re- 
gards his  own  standard  as  enlightened  and 
liberal,  and  that  of  Ms  neighbor  as  narrow  and 
bigoted.  He  thinks  him  over-scrupulous  and 
that  he  makes  Christ's  yoke  heavier  than  Christ 
himself  made  it. 

AVe  have  thus  three  spheres  and  standards  of 
liberality.  In  the  first  the  relation  of  man  and  of 
nature  to  supernatural  agency  is  immediately  in 
question;  in  the  second  it  is  the  relation  of  a 
belief  in  truth  to  practice  that  is  in  question;  and 


12 

in  the  third  it  is  the  relation  of  the  practical  life 
to  the  spirit  of  Christianity  and  to  the  moral  gov- 
ernment of  God.  But  while  the  questions  are 
thus  apparently  different,  their  central  point  is  the 
same.  They  all  find  their  unity  and  interest  in 
the  relation  of  the  human  will  to  supernatural 
control.  Eliminate  but  this  one  idea,  and  the 
crested  waves  of  these  controversies  will  subside 
to  the  merest  ripple ;  and  the  terms  that  may  be 
used,  however  intense  in  form,  will  be  charged 
with  no  divisive  elements.  The  real  questions 
are,  the  existence  of  a  holy  God  claiming  control 
over  the  human  will,  and  the  extent  of  the  control 
thus  claimed. 

Is  there  then  any  criterion  of  liberality  in  these 
several  spheres?  May  Ave  know  where  narrow- 
ness ends  on  the  one  side,  and  laxness  begins  on 
the  other? 

And  first,  what  is  our  criterion  in  the  sphere  of 
belief  respecting  supernatural  agency,  involving 
a  belief  in  efficient  causation  and  in  final  causes 
or  ends  intelligently  proposed  and  pursued  in 
nature?  If  we  begin  with  Fetishism  and  pass 
up,  resolving  phenomena  that  had  been  attributed 
to  spiritual  agency  into  general  laws,  where  shall 
we  stop? 

We  must  stop  at  the  point  ivhere  negation  begins 
to  affect  the  sum  and  grandeur  of  being.  This  is 
the  criterion.  In  passing  up  from  Fetishism  we 
do  indeed  constantly  deny,  but  we  also  constantly 
affirm.  As  we  diminish  the  number  of  supernat- 
ural agents  we  increase  their  greatness,  till  we 
resolve  all  natural   laws  and  forces   directly  or 


13 

indirectly  into  the  will  of  the  one  infinite  God. 
If  now  we  clothe  Him  in  our  conceptions  with 
perfect  moral  attributes,  we  have  the  highest 
conceivable  sum  and  mode  of  being.  This  is  the 
condition,  and  the  only  condition,  of  the  perfect 
working  and  indefinite  progress  of  the  human 
faculties.  Here  we  reach  the  point  of  a  liberality 
without  narrowness  and  without  laxness.  Be- 
yond this  we  pass  into  negation  and  tenuity. 

The  criterion  is  one  not  merely  to  be  seen  by 
the  intellect,  but  to  be  felt  as  a  condition  of 
growth.  The  condition  of  indefinite  growth  in 
intellect  is  thoughts  of  God  still  unfathomed; 
and  the  condition  of  growth  in  the  moral  nature 
is  a  recognized  goodness  in  God  that  transcends 
ours.  Man  cannot  live  in  negations.  If  he  could 
reach  a  point  where  the  imagination  even  could 
transcend  the  possibilities  of  being,  he  would 
begin  to  be  dwarfed.  As  in  passing  upwards  we 
reach  a  point  where  breathing  becomes  less  effec- 
tive from  the  thinness  of  the  atmosphere,  so  the 
moment  we  begin  to  deny  intelligent  will  to  God, 
or  to  impair  his  moral  attributes,  or  to  limit  his 
control  over  the  universe  by  anything  but  the 
conditions  which  he  has  himself  imposed,  we 
come  into  a  mental  atmosphere  of  less  vitality. 
All  history  shows  that  from  that  point  construc- 
tive power  wanes,  and  moral  torpor  begins. 

"What  we  say  then  is,  that  our  criterion  here 
must  be  the  condition  of  highest  activity  and 
fullest  growth  for  the  human  powers ;  that  that 
condition  is  the  complement  and  perfection  of 
being  as  recognized  in  an  infinite  and  personal 


14 

God;  and  that  for  man  to  apply  terms  of  com- 
mendation to  virtual  negations  that  must  stifle 
his  own  life  and  dwarf  his  owji  growth  is  to  call 
evil  good. 

But  secondly,  what  is  the  criterion  of  liberality 
in  regard  to  the  importance  of  religious  truth? 

It  is  here  virtually  the  same  as  before.  Truth 
is  of  importance  only  as  it  ministers  to  life,  and 
as  it  is  the  only  thing  that  can  thus  minister. 
What  we  claim  for  truth  in  the  religious  sphere, 
is  the  same  that  we  claim  for  it  elsewhere  — -  just 
that  and  no  more.  Everywhere  it  is  the  basis  ol 
all  rational  action,  the  very  light  in  which  man 
must  walk  if  he  would  not  stumble.  Men  hold 
truth  that  is  not  acted  upon.  There  is  much  that 
cannot  be  the  basis  of  action,  and  that  which 
may,  and  should  be,  is  often  held,  or  rather  im- 
prisoned, in  indolence  and  unrighteousness.  Be 
its  adaptations  what  they  may,  let  any  truth  lie 
in  the  mind  undigested,  unassimilated,  giving  no 
impulse  or  guidance,  and  it  might  as  well  not  be 
there.  Still,  whatever  rational  action  there  may 
be,  is,  and  must  be  based  on  the  belief  of  some- 
thing as  true.  Men  do  something  because  they 
believe  something;  and  in  religion  no  less  than 
in  other  things  they  must  believe  in  order  to  do, 
unless,  indeed,  we  resolve  the  religious  life  into 
that  mere  muddle  of  unintelligent  feeling  called 
mysticism.  Men  may  believe  in  God  and  not 
worship  him,  but  they  cannot  worship  him  unless 
they  believe  in  him.  Unless  they  believe  that 
"  Christ  has  come  in  the  flesh,"  they  cannot  follow 
him.     Unless  they  believe  in  a  moral  government, 


15 

they  cannot  fear  to  sin ;  nor  can  they  "  flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come,"  unless  they  believe  that  there 
is  a  coming  wrath.  A  man  may  conduct  his  sec- 
ular business  with  a  degree  of  success  under 
some  misapprehension  of  the  facts  on  which  it  is 
based,  but  if  he  misconceive  them  wholly  he  must 
fail ;  and  a  man  who  wholly  denies  or  perverts 
the  facts  on  which  a  religious  life  is  based,  must 
fail  in  that.  But  in  either  case  the  more  perfectly 
the  truth  is  seen,  that  is,  all  truth  that  can  bear 
upon  results,  the  more  the  man  acts  in  his  true 
element  as  a  man,  and  the  more  sure  is  he  of 
success.  i 

We  believe  then  in  no  weak  liberality,  or  pre- 
tence of  breadth  that  would  ignore  the  vital  con- 
nection of  truth  with  life;  and  our  criterion  here, 
the  point  of  liberality  without  narrowness  and 
without  laxity,  is  such  a  belief  in  all  religious 
truth  as  shall  be  the  condition  of  the  highest  life. 

But  we  are  here  met  by  another  despairing 
and  debilitating  assertion.  We  are  told  that  the 
human  mind  has  not  the  power  to  separate  the 
truth  that  is  essential  and  vital  from  that  which 
is  not. 

If  by  this  it  be  meant  that  the  human  mind 
cannot  know  how  little  truth  a  man  may  believe 
and  yet  be  saved,  it  is  true.  ]Nor  are  we  required 
to  know  this.  It  is  not  our  business  to  judge 
men,  but  systems,  and  neither  liberality  nor  char- 
ity can  require  us  to  confound  these,  or  to  fail  to 
discriminate  them  by  sharp  lines.  Charity  may 
make  large  allowance,  but  may  not  require  us  to 
confound  things  that  differ.     It  may  believe  that 


1(3 

a  Mohammedan,  or  a  Deist,  may  have  truth  enough 
to  save  him,  but  it  cannot  deny  the  power  and 
the  right  to  say  that  neither  Mohammedanism  nor 
Deism  is  Christianity.  And  so,  if  among  those 
who  call  themselves  Christians,  any  profess  a 
Christianity  that  has  no  redemption  in  it;  and  if, 
on  the  best  comparison  he  can  make  of  it  with 
the  New  Testament,  any  man  shall  conclude  that 
that  is  not  Christianity;  it  is  no  more  a  want  of 
charity  to  say  so,  than  it  is  for  a  chemist,  after 
testing  it,  to  say  that  an  acid  is  not  an  alkali. 
Let  men  use  their  intellects  freely,  fairly,  mod- 
estly, and  yet  with  a  confidence  that  shall  honor 
God,  as  implying  that  the  faculty  he  has  given 
for  the  discovery  of  truth  is  neither  impotent  nor 
delusive ;  let  them  thus  decide  what  Christianity 
is,  and  then  receive  to  Christian  fellowship  those 
who  accept  what  they  conceive  to  be  its  essential 
doctrines,  and  who  show  that  they  submit  their 
hearts  to  its  claims.  If,  in  doing  this  some  should 
include  doctrines  not  essential  to  Christianity,  it 
is  to  be  imputed,  not  to  a  want  of  charity  or  lib- 
erality, but  to  the  imperfection  of  human  judg- 
ment. 

Our  criterion  here  will  then  require  us  not  only 
to  hold  to  the  vital  connection  of  truth  with  life, 
but  to  the  power  of  man  to  separate  the  truths 
that  are  essential,  not  to  the  salvation  of  an  indi- 
vidual man  as  he  may  be  dealt  with  by  the  Spirit 
of  God,  but  to  Christianity  as  distinguished  from 
any  other  system.  In  such  a  belief  there  is  no 
narrowness.  ,  In  anything  beyond  this  there  is 
laxity  and  feebleness. 


17 

But  thirdly,  we  inquire  for  the  criterion  of 
liberality  in  respect  of  conduct. 

The  criterion  of  liberality  in  belief  as  respects 
conduct  must  refer,  either  to  the  law  which  is  the 
standard  of  conduct,  or  to  the  results  of  trans- 
gressions. 

If  we  suppose  a  being  morally  perfect,  the  v 
standard  of  his  conduct  must  be  a  perfect  moral 
law.  Such  a  law  is  required  both  as  an  expres- 
sion of  the  moral  character  of  God,  and  as  a 
condition  of  the  moral  perfection  of  his  creatures. 
It  is  the  fountain  of  order,  the  guardian  of  rights, 
the  only  impregnable  basis  of  security  for  the 
universe.  Can  it  then  be  asked  in  the  interest  of 
anything  claiming  to  be  liberality,  that  the  per- 
fection of  such  a  law  shall  be  impaired  ?  Ask 
rather  that  the  brightness  of  the  sun  should  be 
dimmed.  Ask  that  God  should  abdicate  his  - 
throne.  If,  as  we  have  seen,  liberality  can  have 
nothing  to  do  in  impairing  the  rights  and  prerog- 
atives of  intellect  in  its  relation  to  truth,  much 
less  may  it  obliterate  moral  distinctions  and  lower 
the  standard  of  moral  action. 

But  the  real  question  respects  conduct  under  a 
law  transgressed,  with  a  possibility  still  remaining 
of  forgiveness  and  restoration  to  full  obedience. 
The  question  for  every  man,  the  one  question  on 
which  his  destiny  turns,  is  whether  he  shall  ever 
be  brought  into  full  harmony  with  a  perfect 
moral  law  ? 

The  law  remaining,  this  must  be  so;  and  being 
so,  the  principle  here  is  obvious.  •  It  is  that 
nothing   can   he    allowed   in  conduct,   whether   in 


18 

principle  or  in  outward  form,  that  would  prevent 
the  speediest  'possible  restoration  of  ourselves  or 
others  to  a  full  obedience. 

But  is  not  God  merciful  ?  Does  he  not  wish 
his  creatures  to  be  happy  V  Yes  ;  but  "shall  we 
continue  in  sin  that  grace  may  abound  ?  God 
forbid/'  Little  do  they  know  of  God's  mercy 
who  speak  of  it  in  such  a  connection.  There  is 
iu  it  a  depth  and  tenderness  of  which  they  have 
no  conception.  But  then  its  first  element  is  a 
regard  for  law,  and  any  act  of  seeming  mercy 
that  would,  in  the  slightest  degree,  impair  the 
power  of  law,  would  not  be  mercy,  but  an  act 
of  indifference  or  of  weakness.  These,  indiffer- 
ence and  weakness,  especially  the  former,  are 
constantly  confounded  with  mercy,  but  no  con- 
trast could  be  greater.  Mercy  is  not  compassion ; 
it  is  not  simply  benevolence.  It  is  favor  shown 
in  accordance  with  the  honor  of  the  law  to  the 
guilty  whose  punishment  is  demanded  by  the 
law;  and  the  weakness  and  indifference  that  are 
in  it  find  their  measure  in  the  agony  of  the  gar- 
den and  the  death  cry  of  the  cross.  What  Christ 
did,  is  the  measure  at  once  of  the  value  of  the 
law  and  of  the  depth  of  love  there  is  in  the  divine 
mercy.  Yes,  God  is  merciful;  so  merciful  that 
he  gave  his  Son  for  us,  but  not  so  merciful 
that  he  will  pardon  one  sin  except  through  Him. 
It  is  on  mercy  thus  shown,  revealing  at  once  a 
love  unutterable  and  a  firmness  unalterable,  that 
we  rely  for  quickening  the  consciences  of  men 
and  bringing  them  up  to  new  obedience  ;  and 
God  forbid  that  we  should  give  a  fair  name  to 


19 

anything  that  would  weaken  their  sense  of  its 
need,  or  diminish  its  power.  Yes,  God  desires 
the  happiness  of  his  creatures;  and  therefore 
sets  himself  with  the  whole  force  of  his  nature 
against  transgression.  He  has  provided  for 
every  inlet  of  pleasure,  and  for  every  sponta- 
neity of  joy;  but  these  can  be  permanent  only 
for  those  who  have  never  wandered  from  the 
inclosure  of  his  law,  or  who  have  been  brought- 
back  by  One  who  has  sought  them  with  weary 
and  bleeding  feet  upon  the  dark  mountains. 

Let  men  but  draw  the  inspiration  of  their  lives 
from  such  an  apprehension  of  the  cross  of  Christ, 
thus  coming  into  full  sympathy  with  mercy  in  its 
end  as  restoring  them  to  obedience,  and  they  will 
easily  dispose  of  many  questions  regarding  con- 
duct which  perplex  those  who  discuss  them  on  a 
lower  plain.  On  the  one  side  there  is  a  tendency 
to  austerity  and  to  forms  in  a  legal  or  a  supersti- 
tious spirit ;  and  on  the  other  to  ignore  the  inhe- 
rent and  essential  law  of  self-denial,  and  the  fact 
that  a  Christian  is  not  of  this  world  even  as 
Christ  was  not  of  this  world.  But  he  who  has  it 
for  his  end  to  be  conformed  to  a  spiritual  law, 
will  not  rest  in  any  physical  suffering  or  outward 
form ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  will  he  either  make 
amusements,  now  so  much  spoken  of,  an  essential 
part  of  his  life,  or  rail  at  them.  The  question 
with  him  will  be  where  his  heart  is,  whither  he  is 
tending,  and  he  will  find  both  liberty  and  liberal- 
ity under  the  great  law  of  Christian  self-denial, 
that  permits  a  man  to  do  anything  which  will  not 
hinder  his  restoration  to  moral  soundness  in  the 


20 
k 
sight  of  God.  Yes,  my  friends,  you  may  do  any- 
thing which  will  not  counterwork  in  yourselves  or 
others  the  work  which  Christ  came  to  do.  In  this 
is  liberty,  and  any  liberality  that  would  go  beyond 
this  is  license. 

Thus  are  our  criteria  all  practical.  They  are 
simply  the  conditions  requisite  for  the  highest 
mental  and  moral  efficiency.  Take  away  any- 
thing from  the  sum  or  the  excellence  of  being,  or 
from  the  value  of  truth,  or  from  the  power  of  the 
mind  to  attain  it,  and  by  the  very  laws  of  mind 
you  put  it  under  conditions  less  favorable  for 
mental  robustness  and  efficiency.  And  so,  if  you 
lower  the  standard  of  moral  law;  or  take  from 
the  conditions  of  mercy  their  legal  element ;  espe- 
cially if  any  indulgence  be  allowed  that  for  you 
dims  the  light,  or  impairs  the  power  of  a  self- 
denying,  humble,  prayerful,  spiritual  life,  you 
preclude  the  possibility  of  the  highest  moral  effi- 
ciency. But  it  is  in  and  through  moral  perfection 
that  man  finds  his  true  end,  and  no  liberality  that 
would  lower  the  tone  of  this  can  be  admitted. 

To  some  it  may  appear  that  the  criteria  pro- 
posed are  not  legitimate,  because  they  do  not 
respect  directly  what  is  true,  but  infer  truth  from 
that  which  is  best  adapted  to  perfect  man.  But 
such  an  inference  will  be  least  distrusted  by  those 
who  know  most  of  the  works  of  God.  If  we 
may  not  make  it,  the  desire  for  truth  and  good- 
ness Avill  thwart  that  for  perfection,  and  there  is, 
in  the  constitution  of  man,  a  contradiction  found 
nowhere  else. 


21 

It  is  in  the  faith  of  this  identity  of  truth  with 
life  that  you,  my  dear  friends  of  the  Graduating 
Class,  have  been  trained  to  regard  the  freest 
discussion  not  only  as  a  right,  but  as  a  duty. 
You  will  bear  me  witness  that  you  have  been 
called  unto  liberty.  I  bear  you  witness  that,  thus 
far,  in  the  fields  we  have  traversed  together,  if 
laboriously,  yet  pleasantly,  you  have  known  how 
to  bear  the  responsibilities  of  liberty  by  temper- 
ing zeal  with  modesty.  But  now,  in  entering 
upon  more  independent  action,  your  period  of  life 
and  the  whole  drift  of  the  times  would  lead  you 
to  sympathize  with  those  who  make  f  liberality ' 
and  ? broad'  church  their  watch-word;  and  you 
will  permit  me  to  caution  you  not  to  abuse  liberty. 
An  Apostle  tells  us  there  were  those  of  old,  and 
possibly  there  may  be  some  such  now,  who  spoke 
"  great  swelling  words  of  vanity,"  and  promised 
liberty  to  others,  while  they  were  themselves  "  the 
servants  of  corruption."  Always  liberty  has  been 
assaiied  in  the  name  of  liberty.  There  is  nothing 
new  in  this  claim  of  liberality  and  demand  for  it. 
It  has  existed  from  the  time  that  a  holy  God  laid 
claim  to  exclusive  worship,  and  established  a 
church  that  should  recognize  that  claim.  In  that 
claim  was  the  root  of  a  conflict  that  has  been 
waged,  and  will  be,  till  one  party  or  the  other 
shall  triumph.  Let  men  yield  to  that  claim  as 
children  and  we  ask  no  more.  We  can  be  satis- 
fied with  nothing  less.  In  opposition  to  that 
claim  there  was  always  a  party  among  the  Jews 
inclined  to  affinity  in  their  religion  with  the  na- 
tions around   them.     Were   not   those    religions 


919 


equally  religion?  Did  they  not  bring  into  activ- 
ity the  religious  nature  ?  Were  not  the  people 
sincere?  And  then  the  creed  was  less  exclusive, 
and  the  worship  more  attractive,  and  artistic,  and 
compatible  with  freedom  in  certain  practices  not 
allowed  by  the  Jewish  law.  Why  should  they  be 
so  narrow  as  to  stand  aloof  from  all  others'?  The 
whole  history  of  the  Jews  under  the  Judges  and 
tlu-  Kings  is  little  else  than  an  account  of  the 
different  phases  of  this  struggle,  the  liberal  party 
being  generally  in  the  ascendant;  and  it  was  only 
through  the  Babylonish  captivity  that  God  vindi- 
cated his  supremacy  and  eliminated  the  tendency 
to  idolatry. 

Xor  is  Christianity,  as  claiming  the  absolute 
supremacy  of  God  over  both  the  life  and  the 
heart,  less  exclusive  than  was  Judaism.  It  did, 
indeed,  throw  down  all  barriers  between  the 
Jews  and  others  ;  but  it  abated  nothing  of  the 
moral  claims  of  God.  So  Christ  regarded  it. 
He  spoke  of  the  "strait  gate  and  the  narrow 
way";  and  there  is  something  ominous  in  the 
sound  of  "broad  church"  when  we  hear  Him 
saying,  "broad  is  the  road  that  leadeth  to 
destruction."  So  the  Apostles  regarded  it  ; 
and  when  that  same  principle  of  exclusiveness 
that  had  been  quiescent  in  Judaism  became 
aggressive  in  Christianity,  then  a  liberality  that 
could  tolerate  and  fellowship  everything  else 
revealed  its  quality  in  the  bitter  hate  of  ten 
bloody  persecutions.  And  so  it  has  been  since. 
Of  everything  else  but  a  church  that  represents 
the  uncompromising  and  exclusive  claims  of  God, 


23 

liberality  has  spoken  with  a  bland  voice  ;  but 
that  she  on  the  one  hand,  and  bigotry  and  intol- 
erance on  the  other,  have  equally  persecuted. 
That  it  is  that  ecclesiasticism  has  frowned  upon 
and  imprisoned,  and  that  literature  and  genius 
have  caricatured  and  mocked  at,  and  do  still. 
Be  it  that  in  such  a  church  there  may  be  found 
hypocrisies,  pretence,  dishonesty,  meanness,  nar- 
rowness, and  even  inelegance.  These  are  fair 
game,  but  can  never  account  for  the  intense 
venom  that  has  tipped  the  arrows  that  have 
been  shot  at  the  church  ;  nor  for  the  spiteful 
and  persistent  vigor  with  which  they  have  been 
sped.  These  have  come  only  as  a  part  of  that 
"irrepressible  conflict"  of  all  time,  that  has 
never  failed  to  show  itself  where  the  claims 
of  God  have  been  set  up. 

In  connection  with  this  conflict,  in  which  no 
man  can  be  neutral,  I  wish  for  you,  my  friends, 
no  needless  antagonism.  Whatever  may  stand 
in  the  way  of  a  life  under  the  inspiration  of  love 
to  God  and  men,  and  in  sympathy  with  the  reme- 
dial power  of  Christianity,  that  meet  and  oppose; 
but  have  no  mere  anti-isms,  and  make  nothing  a 
point  unless  required  by  loyalty  to  truth  and  to 
God.  All  wilfulness  and  false  issues  are  mis- 
chievous, and  suffering  from  them,  or  fo»  them,  is 
at  best  useless.  But  I  do  wish  for  you  in  this 
conflict  such  a  belief,  and  such  an  attitude  towards 
it,  as  not  to  imply  that  the  martyrs  were  fools; 
and  as  to  make  it  possible  that  you  should  your- 
selves become  martyrs.  ~No  belief—  no,  I  do  not 
say  belief,  I  say  faith  involving  trust  —  no  faith 


24 

can  give  to  life  its  highest  inspiration  that  a  man 
would  not  die  for.  Have  such  a  faith.  Live  for 
it;  if  need  be,  die  for  it;  for  in  losing  your  life 
thus  you  shall  "  keep  it  unto  life  eternal." 

But  shall  we  not,  you  say,  belong  to  the  party 
of  progress  ?  Yes,  progress  in  light,  in  dis- 
crimination, in  the  detection  of  all  shams  and 
hypocrisies,  and  out  of  the  church  as  well  as  in 
it  ;  but  especially  progress  in  love,  love  to  God 
and  love  to  man.  In  this  only  is  the  root  of 
a  liberality  that  is  not  pretentious  and  hollow, 
that  will  despise  no  one  and  persecute  no  one. 
Tli rough  this  you  shall  grow  into  a  liberality  that 
will  embrace  all  that  can  be  embraced  without 
defilement ;  and  all  narrowness,  bigotry,  sectarian- 
ism, will  fall  from  you  as  naturally  as  its  chrys- 
alis covering  foils  from  the  insect  that  is  finding 
its  wings.  Come  out  then  from  all  incrusta- 
tions of  narrowness  into  full  Christian  light  and 
liberty.  Whomsover  God  loves,  love  ye ;  whom- 
soever he  receives,  receive  ye.  Join  that  great 
party  that  is  now  seeking,  as  by  a  divine  instinct, 
A  higher  unity  EST  Christ.  Ponder  more  the 
import  and  the  implications  of  his  prayer,  "  Tit  at 
the ij  all  may  he  one?  Progress?  Yes,  progress 
in  all  in  which  that  is  possible  ;  but  remember 
that  our  great  business  here,  our  whole  business 
as  practical,  is  progress  in  conformity  to  those 
fixed  conditions  of  growth  and  well-being  in 
which,  as  in  the  brightness  of  the  sun,  there  is  no 
progress,  but  which  God  has  perfected  forever. 
Learn  what  those  conditions  are.  Accept  your 
place  under  them  as  creatures  and  as  children ; 


25 

comprehend,  if  you  please,  and  if  you  can,  how 
conformity  to  those  conditions  promotes  growth, 
but  know  that  except  in  conformity  to  them  there 
can  be  progress  only  in  barren  knowledge,  or  in 
delusion  and  folly. 

And  now,  my  beloved  friends,  remembering 
the  past,  so  far  as  it  is  connected  with  you,  only 
with  pleasure  and  thankfulness,  and  looking  for- 
ward to  your  future  with  hope  and  confidence,  I 
can  only  say,  — 

"  The  Lord  bless  you  and  keep  you  ; 

"  The  Lord  make  his  face  shine  upon  you  and  be  gracious 
unto  you  ; 

"  The  Lord  lift  up  his  couutenance  upon  you  and  give 
you  peace." 


OVERDUE. 


Stockton,  Calif. 

PAT.  IAN.  2!,  1908 


jGajsaps^sfefe 


583134 


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